Since these guys are news to me, I’ll open this review with a quote from their one-sheet- "Hop-frog’s drum jester devotional is the brainchild of one of the founding members of the hop-frog kollectiv, e.loi, aka Jeremy Morelock and features core members of the hop-frog kollectiv. After numerous compilation appearances and vinyl releases, Morelock unveils Drum Jester’s debut album, Bets Ov., Vol. 1 with psychedelic, Broken- Dub, MIDI-Eastern, Post-Asiatic madness like no other."

Okay, I can dig that, even though I’ve never heard of the Hop-Frog Kollectiv before. And you know, when I first started listening to this CD, I really kind of liked it. Very different. There was a group a long time ago called the Third Ear Band, a strange acoustic outfit that was one of the first modern groups to use a middle-eastern motif in their music. The first track here, "L’amour Du Nil" (I’ll dispense with the mix & version tags which every track seems to have) reminded me a lot of them, but with more radical percussion touches. It’s trancey, hypnotic, and even at 7:39 with not a lot of variation except the percussion fills in the middle is still not boring. After that though, things begin to get strange... very strange. "Eastern Spleen 3" showcases Hop-Frog’s Moroccan Jujouka influences, with some rather sloppy big beat kit drumming added (loops?) and a slide whistle break with a sampled voice repeating "You’re god is a bore... like a tortoise.." This got old pretty quick, and over six minutes of not much else happening I lost interest.

"Love In A Minefield" combines a reedy Indian shenai melody with some mild processed l percussion loops, then a bit of processed tabla with occasional worldless female vocals. Not bad... doesn’t go anywhere but doesn’t have to. "Devotional Desert" sounds like a trip to a Moslem city on acid. This is where things get really trippy. I swear I hard something like this on a soundtrack to a 60’s drug movie, or maybe it was an East of Eden album... Once again the trance element (not like "dance-trance", although you probably could dance to it) is solidly in place in the repeating patterns of the great cosmic awl. (Did I just say that?)

You know, I wish I had heard this album when I was in Amsterdam a month or so ago. I really would have had the means to deeply appreciate it. I realize now, that these guys must have access to some great weed or other psychoactive substances to produce this kind of music. Stoners are going to LOVE this album! "Another Intricate Gem of the Mouthfrothian Liberation Front" has some very good downtempo elements going for it, Thievery Corporation style. Simple guitar, bass, drums, sampled string, a burbbly synth effect with this exotic female choral vocal that is just right for the track. But like the first time you try a soup recipe, it needs a little something- maybe a different break, maybe just a shorter length. Maybe a tad too much fenugreek, I guess.

"Elephants Agony" has that oft used sampled native children chant heard in so many world music hybrid-crossover projects. Would’ve been okay if they dispensed with it after the beginning and filled in with more musical elements, but the loping, plodding rhythm was nice and elephant-like. Well, the song IS about stopping an elephant dead in her tracks, but with an overuse of repetition again, it bordered on "Listener’s Agony". It took me this long to realize, I could expect most all the tracks to be rather repetitive. At least the next one, "You Can’t Do That To Me, I’m An American" had a lot more going on so it wasn’t as much noticed. A trip to Afghanistan with industrial percussion, Afghani instruments, warped processed vocals and even a few unanticipated musical breaks. The nearly fourteen minutes of "Germ of Sorrow 2" takes you through a weird, unbridled 3rd world journey, with a lot of percussive anomalies. Now I’m beginning to grasp the "Drum Jester Devotional" part of the group’s name. Hey, pass that bong please, I need a bit more inspiration...

"Cherries of War" closes out "Bets Ov Vol.1." in a slowly slow musical mantra that seems an appropriate way to end this trip. I find it interesting that the Hop Frog Kollectiv have occasionally hooked up with the Current 93/ Rose McDowall crowd. It’s hard not to like em for that aspect alone, and I can forgive a few missteps if this is their first commercial outing. My advice (if anybody’s listening) would be to cut back a bit on repetitive spoken word samples, and if the songs are going to be trancey and repetitive, at least introduce more interesting elements, or add a couple of breaks. Although this album is a mixed bag, it’s definitely worth a listen. And if you happen to have some G13xSilverHaze, or NY Diesel to put in your hubbly bubbly, it will probably sound even better. I’m guessing their next effort will sound even better still.

Four years after his latest studio album Maurizio Dami a.k.a. Alexander Robotnick is back with a brand new CD. MY LA(TE)ST ALBUM. In the meantime he did two compilations with unreleased tracks ("Rare Robotnick's" and "Krypta 1982") and a new project (Italcimenti) with Lapo Lombardi a.k.a. Ludus Pinsky. The new album sees Robotnick sound changed a bit because of the experiences he did during these years. He did many dj sets (there's also a compilation of his selections, titled "The Disco Tech of... Alexander Robotnick", released by Yellow Productions) and listened to many records. In this way a particular thing happened: Maurizio had been influenced by the people he influenced. This sort of karmic cycle made him produce an album of dance electro tunes that sound fresh and classic at the same time. It's also true that sometimes some tracks sound a little bit at the service of the dance floor but Maurizio never lose the point. Tracks like the opening "Disco sick", "We love the music", "I'm getting lost in my brain" are influenced by electro, techno and a little bit of acid but on "Don't get in it" (a mid tempo electro atmospheric and mysterious tune) I found his classic dark touch. He cleaned off his old analogue gear and made his best to create a personal blend of 27 years of career. If you are into Italo disco you'll like "In a positive mood". Are you into old school techno? "Dublin-Florence-Siena" is for you: there are sounds for each of your electronic needs. Try it...

Paul Stoney and Stephen French make up of the London, England based Metsuo. A electronic/techno duo who is incredible making infectious killer club tracks that will make you want to bob your head and dance to the rhythm. This four track ep signifies their signature sound. Polished electronic and synth sounds. Every track on "A Small Box" is top rate and easy to get into. My personal favorite is "House of Small Chairs" that have a funky catchy groovy bassline and can go to a movie, anime or videogame soundtrack. "AIX" is a beautiful ambient, which the band have a video clip for on their website on myspace. Good cinematography indeed. The track "Blind Angry Bear" leans inbetween techno and hip-hop. Metsuo reminds me of the electronic hip-hop artist Kurtis Mantronik. An 80's legend dj and former half member of the electronic dance & hip-hop group Mantronix. This British duo is fascinating, show promise and worth keeping an eye on in the future

Recently I've read the short but interesting interview to Asmus Tietchens done by Nuno Loureiro (see the interviews section) where he speaks about the fact while at the beginning he got fascinated by the industrial scene, successively he evolved into something else closer to the so called "music concrete". The Hafler Trio together with Tietchens, Waterman and similar musicians represents the epitome of that scene located in the nowhere land between experimental music, music concrete, industrial oddities and "space trips", but wasn't that what early industrial was about? Wasn't it striving to be the next step after the idea of punk? Wasn't it much more challenging and exciting that dressing like Douglas Pierce an acting like a Boyd Rice?. The fact is that the Hafler Trio in 1986 was much more ahead than many musicians doing the same things in the new millenium even if the hyper prolificity of the project sometimes prevented it to get always a top notch result. Tip of hat for the carrier here celebrated with a repress that's part of a whole repress project Korm Plastic dedicated to this english born artist, the packaging is simply rad and the music, while presenting some typical features like those concrete sounds, some powerful white-noise blasts, some sharp frequencies is fragmented and full of silence that interrupts the fluxus of the suite requiring a patient listening to get in symbiosis with the work. As I've wrote at the bginning of the review people like Hafler Trio, Waterman and Tietchens deserves a particular place in the history of music.

Somehow this one got away from me, and has been kicking around for a while. No matter, I get to it all... eventually. Billed as "The finest the underground has to offer, chock full of industrial, breakcore, idm, dark ambient, drones, and noise." I will agree that it is chock full of all the aforementioned sub-genres. It is a mixed bag however, and with that much variety, it’s not going to trip everyone’s musical trigger. Rather than run it down track by track, let me tell you what I really liked and why. Axiome set the pace with "zieverdera", beginning with a spiraling electronic wire-ride that morph into a barrage of heavily distorted beats, with an effluvia of electronic sounds & samples, sliced & diced vocals and more that push it into hyperspace. There is so bloody much going on here, I can’t even gauge the BPM! It’s crazy, raucous, like your best synthware program just freaked out and blew up your computer. Play it loud and make the neighbors move. Xanopticon offer "pscicite", which must be running at 190 BPM or more, in a blinding fury that melds into a spacey tension break, and then resumes the breakneck breakcore with even more fervor until it collapses in exhaustion. Whew! I need a towel. Larvae’s "seclusion" (mothboy remix) mixes ambient synth strains with bigbeat-breakcore, distorted bass synth underpinning, then breaks with a mod-vocal loop which morph into a weird repeating feedbacky synth line. I liked the distorto-drums. I thought Subtractivlad’s "brokadocious" was going to be pedestrian with it’s simple beat beginning, but as it chugged along, there was just so much bizarre sound manipulation to the analog synth sounds they’re using that it really became technically impressive. Could almost be used as a demo for T.C. Electronics’ Fireworx unit. Mad EP’s track," Thievery Is Grand"(Insomnia Remix by Detritus) is one I really liked. Sort of like jazz in purgatory. Drums big and upfront with no mod or distortion (unlike most of the tracks on this disc), occasional jazz riffs, dirty sub-sounds and grit. Song would probably sound great if you had a few drinks too. Exillon’s "Hello Pighead" is as good as anything I’ve heard Autechre do, maybe even better... . All over the map with wild beats and dramatically warped strings. "Lightness" by Visions is a spooky, creepy atmospheric track that sounds like electronically resurrecting ghosts. Maybe the spirits that live inside the circuitry. Very otherworldly. Perhaps the best track on the CD. I’d really like to hear Frédéric Arbour’s (the guy who is Visions) full release sometime. EXCELLENT track. Maath gives you a taste of the bleakness of space with "the structure at the end of life", a minimal but highly effective dark ambient track. There are just enough peripheral sounds to keep it interesting. Very nicely done. S.Q.E.’s "epitaph 3" is very strange, maybe the most innovative thing on the whole disc. Zzzizling cymbal crescendos heavily processed echoing unearthly voices, apprehensive swelling pads, - the whole effect is startling. Definitely worth a listen. Last track by Navicon Torture Technologies – "your jealousy has paid off" is very warped. Chipmunk processed voice with an electronic factory background morphing into a noise fest where a disturbed processed voice shouts about something unintelligible. He sounds pissed about something. I’ll be reviewing a CD by them soon. Maybe he WILL be pissed... Anyway, there were only about 4 or 5 track on this disc I didn’t care for, not bad for such a mixed bag. A good introduction to Systemic Audio artists, and a bargain at only five bucks on their website.